Best New Horror 2
Language: English
Pages: 433
ISBN: 0881849219
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This is the sensational showcase of the year's very best horror stories from the greatest contemporary masters of fear.
places that are steeped in recent histories of blood and founded on terror. Far from making me feel better, this alteration in the atmosphere made my stomach knot, but what could I say to John? I wanted to go back? I had no choice but to follow where his guide led us, and hope for an early opportunity to duck out if we saw daylight at any time. Although I am sensitive to such places, I’m not usually a coward. Old churches and ancient houses bother me, but I normally shrug and put up with any
inevitable. So I said, “All right.” After a few more careful instructions from Mr Chase, I went over to the equipment truck to check out my radio and pick up some extra gear. If I refused the assignment and more people died as a result, it wouldn’t be worth the effort to live. I had to do it. But I was scared. Good Christ, I was scared. Once I had made up my mind, Brophy and the rest of the guys quit trying to talk me out of it, but I thought I saw tears in Zaluta’s eyes as I came down the
flapping loosely around her thin chest. An occasional boy, rude and bashful, a wad of chewing tobacco plumping his cheek. And finally another baby stumbling to the truck behind a mother ungraced by a gold ring, the two of them leaving naked footprints in the road. “Wild girls,” Cass said softly as we watched them run from the truck, to swing over fences or perch there for an instant, staring back at us with glittering eyes. “Like dragonflies,” he murmured. I saw them as he did, shining creatures
solemn-eyed for a moment as he gazed wistfully across the field. Then she slid from his lap, pursing her lips to kiss his chin, and pulled at Sam’s shoulder. “Show him what you can do, Sam,” she said imperiously. “That thing. Show Cass.” Sam smiled and looked away. “Show him!” She bounced against his side, pulling his union suit until he nodded and rose sighing, like a bear torn from his long sleep. Cass looked at me with mock alarm as Sam lumbered down the steps to the willow tree. “Watch!”
Someone coughing. He wondered if he was back at home. And he wondered why he felt so happy to be there. He imagined that he was Simon. He could feel the mannish strength inside him, the confident hands that could turn chaotic plastic into perfect machines, the warm, admiring approval of the whole wide world surrounding him like the glowing skin of the boy in the Ready Brek advert. A man’s voice calling goodnight and the clink of keys drew David back from sleep. He opened his eyes and listened.